


Got Her Back

by GrumpyJenn



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Paris (City), Rule 12 - Never Date a Co-Worker, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 11:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11012760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: Who slept on the couch?





	Got Her Back

Ziva had been tense - even for her - since Somalia.

Tony was not stupid, and he'd been around long enough to know what terrorists did to prisoners.

Especially female prisoners.

And even though she'd cornered him in the men's room - again - and told him that she trusted him, he had her back, he always had her back... he knew she didn't.

Not all the way. Not with this. She probably didn't wholly trust _any_ man right now.

But she had Abby, and the shrinks if she needed them.

If she'd use them.

She kept getting wound tighter and tighter, and for God's sake they were in Paris, so Tony told her to loosen up, just relax. Have a drink, hell, it's _Paris_ , have a whole damn bottle of champagne. But she wouldn't, and it was obvious to Tony that she felt... well... _vulnerable_. Not entirely safe, not since Somalia.

"Come on, Ziva," Tony said, and she looked up at him from the table in the little hotel bar. She'd been nursing the one drink all night. She shook her head.

"No." It was all she said, but Tony knew she meant it.

"Ziva. Come on. You can get completely plowed in our room." He signaled the bartender for a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses, then turned back to his partner.

She looked small and defenseless, and she was anything but.

Tony took her hand, and knew - when she didn't pull away, or, say, break his elbow - that she was even worse off than he'd thought. "I have your back, Ziva. I'll always have your back. Trust me."

Ziva gave a short, terse nod, and stood.

He kind of missed it when she dropped his hand to take the nearly-full bottle from its cooling bucket.

 

NCISNCISNCIS

 

Tony was unprepared when the now thoroughly drunk Ziva tackled him, fastened her lips on his, and took him down. And then she was kissing him, and that was definitely _not_ his knee, and he had to stop this _right now_.

He wrapped his hands around her biceps and pushed himself away. 

Panting, they stared at each other for a moment. And then Ziva's face - usually in an expression of calm or exasperation or even one of her rare smiles - just _crumpled_ into a mask of misery and pain. She didn't shout or curse or even cry, just sat there looking at him in utter despair.

Tony ran a hand through his hair. "Ziva..."

"Don't. You do not want me, and that is that. You think that since Somalia I am - what did Director Vance call it? - damaged goods."

" _What_?" The Director had told her she was... surely he hadn't meant it like _that_ ; that wasn't Vance's style, he... but his partner was still just sitting there looking devastated. "Of _course_ I don't think you're..." Jesus, he couldn't even say it. "But, Rule Twelve, and, and..."

"And?" Now that was a patented Ziva look, the kind that could cut a man off at the knees.

Tony took a deep breath. "And I told you, I have your back. I will always have your back." She looked as though she was about to make a sarcastic comment, so Tony rushed on. "Ziva. You are my partner and one of my best friends. If I took advantage of your - call it impaired - state - hell, you're drunk off your adorable ass - you'd never forgive me. _I'd_ never forgive me." She was still watching him, warily, and Tony decided to lighten the mood. "Besides," he said teasingly, "You'd break my arm."

"It would not be your arm I would break if I felt that you took advantage of me, DiNozzo." She smiled sweetly, and it was patently false. "It would be your... shall we call it your knee?"

 _That's more like it,_ Tony thought.

But then he wondered... would she remember this conversation in the morning?

And would she then break his... knee?

 

NCISNCISNCIS

 

Neither of them slept on the couch.

But Tony figured it was the only way to protect her - the only way she'd _let_ him protect her - by saying he had.

And if she remembered what happened that night, the night she let him watch her back, let herself loosen up... she never said.


End file.
